#fairy tales

shad0wspinner:

“I tell them: don’t depend on the woodsman in the third act. I tell them: look for sets of three, or seven. I tell them: there’s always a way to survive. I tell them: don’t make any bargains that involve major surgery. I tell them: you don’t have to lie still and wait for someone to tell you how to live. I tell them: it’s all right to push her into the oven. She was going to hurt you. I tell them: she couldn’t help it. She just loved her own children more. Primate instinct. I tell them: everyone starts out young and brave. It’s what you can do with that that matters. I tell them: You can share that bear with your sister. I tell them: No one can stay silent forever. I tell them: it’s not your fault. I tell them: mirrors lie. I tell them: you can wear those boots, if you want them. You can lift that swords. It was always your sword. I tell them: the apple has two sides. I tell them: just because he woke you up doesn’t mean you owe him anything. I tell them: his name is Rumpelstiltskin.”

—Catherynne M. Valente, from “The Consultant,” The Bread We Eat in Dreams

[Letter to a devout, practicing Jew mother on how to raise her son who “believes in science”]

Of course in a free country, within limits, you can raise your children how you please, on whatever belief system you choose. For this reason, most people in the world who are religious, practice the religion of their parents. For example, the chances of Christians raising a child who later becomes Muslim, or a Muslim family raising a child who later becomes Jewish are extremely rare. The children will be more likely to grow up believing in no Gods than in the Gods of other religions.

So the urge to raise your son as a devout, practicing Jew, being one yourself, is entirely normal and natural. But of course you have, at most, only 18 years of direct influence on him. Your son will spend more than eighty percent of his life under a different roof than you.

From what I have seen and encountered, Judaism manifests across a huge range of practices - from emboldened Jews who enthusiastically eat bacon to the various sects of Orthodox Jews who, among other practices, maintain separate kitchen utensils for dairy and for meat. As a scientist, I have much more experience with atheist Jews. They do not view the Torah as the word of God. They see it as a book of stories - not to be judged for their truth or falsehood, but as a repository of insights from which wisdom for living one’s life can be derived.

Think about it - when we read fairy tales, we are not judging them for whether they are true or not. Instead, we fold lessons derived from them into our world views. Not only this, atheist Jews will commonly celebrate the high holidays with no less ritual than practicing Jews, right on down to leaving an open seat the Seder table for Elijah, and making sure the front door is unlocked, so he can just walk right in if he happens to show up.

Why would an atheist Jew do this? The answer is not hard. Rituals and traditions account for some of the strongest binding forces among peoples of the world. Attending Mass on Sundays for Catholics. Prayer five times per day for Muslims. Ancestor worship for the Animist religions. One can participate without judging whether the events that established the ritual have any literal truth at all. The participation creates a sense of community. which has almost always contributed value to civilization. It disrupts civilization only when people require that others share their particular rituals, with threat of force to achieve it.

Being on the spectrum and liking science as he does, your best bet might be to not enforce the literalism of anything religious, but to keep him plugged into the beautiful traditions of the religion, and emphasize the value of ritual as a seed and taproot of community. Often that alone represents the greatest challenge when raising autistic children - getting them to embrace the value of love and compassion for people and for relationships.

Rest assured that you can raise a wholesome, intelligent, law-abiding child without requiring he believe that Moses turned a staff into a snake, or that manna fell from heaven.

Good luck. In my experience, it takes some of that too.

- Neil deGrasse Tyson in ‘Letters from an Astrophysicist’

Recent DnD commission that I absolutely loved working on!

This buttercup circle popped up in front of my garden bench, I think the fairies are setting me a trap

Princess and the Pea.

Only instead of royalist propaganda, this:

backstory of the king saying “urgh whichever of my two children (one male, one female) gets married first, gets the crown”.

Aside from that, everything begins as in the traditional story, except

the sister of the prince sneaks in and removes the pea from under the mattress.  She knows it’s bullshit.  Pea might be a metaphor, make it a DNA test or whatever.  She rigs it, in any case, so the visitor princess passes whatever test she doesn’t even know she’s taking. 

Result time comes, Prince is like Whahoo I got myself a princess! and the visitor princess is like, ew no?  what made you think I’d be ok with this?  Oh because you’re a prince I’m supposed to just…go with it?  Nah.

Besides your sister is more my type.

King is like Yay!  You’re still in the family, I still have a kid to take the crown!

Visitor princess looks at resident princess, and they’re both like, Nah. 

I mean, she’s a princess in her own right, why the hell would she stay there with the creepy prince and obviously stupid king?

So they run off together to the visitor princess’s kingdom. 

The End.

OH AND ALSO NO FUCKING CUTESY MASCOT ANIMAL BULLSHIT.

thank you.

murikins:

tiny friend :}

ŻABA~